THE explosive statutory declaration by convicted murderer Azilah Hadri yesterday comes years after the sensational accounts of another SD by the late private investigator, P. Balasubramaniam, in 2008.

While Azilah’s declaration names former prime minister Najib Razak as the one who specifically ordered Altantuya Shaariibuu’s extermination in 2006 for being a foreign spy, Balasubramaniam’s document told of a sexual relationship between Najib and the Mongolian interpreter, and her marriage to Najib’s then special officer, Abdul Razak Baginda.

PI Bala, as he was known, had been hired by Razak in 2006 to monitor Altantuya’s movements. Najib was deputy prime minister at the time.

Bala, in the first SD dated July 1, 2008, nearly two years after Altantuya’s murder between the night of October 19 and early hours of October 20, 2006, said Razak and Altantuya each told him certain information about how she was linked to Najib.

Bala, who died of a heart attack in 2013, said Altantuya, who had identified herself to him as “Aminah”, told him that she had met Razak in Singapore with Najib. She also met both at a dinner in Paris and that she had been promised US$500,000 as commission for assisting in a submarine deal in Paris.

The 28-year-old also told Bala that Razak had married her in Korea and bought her a house in Mongolia but that her brother had refinanced it. She also needed money for her mother’s medical treatments and that she now wanted to see Razak for money, failing which she wanted to meet with Najib.

Bala said Razak told him how Najib had introduced him to Altantuya in Singapore and confessed his (Najib’s) sexual relationship with her but wanted her kept away as he had become deputy prime minister.

Altantuya also demanded money from Razak over the submarine deal, Bala added.

Bala’s account of the night of October 19 when Azilah, fellow commando Sirul Azhar Umar and a lance corporal Rohaniza came to take Altantuya away from outside Razak’s house in Bukit Damansara, mostly matches Azilah’s account in his statutory declaration.

In a stunning U-turn, Bala denied everything he said in a second statutory declaration, dated July 4, 2008, barely 24 hours after holding a press conference the day before to reveal the first SD.

After that, he and his family fled Malaysia, living in exile in India until 2013, when they returned to Malaysia. Bala died of a heart attack in March that year, just weeks after their return.

His wife, Santamil Selvi, had twice tried to sue Najib, his wife Rosmah Mansor and six others for trauma and losses caused as a result of having to flee Malaysia over the second SD.

Santamil was unsuccessful both times getting the courts to hear her suit, in which she alleged that Najib and Rosmah used other parties to coerce Bala into retracting his first SD. They also said the second SD was drafted by others and forced upon Bala to read out at another press conference on July 4, 2008.

Bala had also been a key witness in Altantuya’s murder trial, which found Azilah and Sirul guilty of her murder at the high court. The ruling was overturned at the Court of Appeal, but both members of the police’s Special Action Force (UTK) were convicted and sentenced to death by the Federal Court in 2015.

Razak had also been charged with conspiracy in the murder but he was acquitted without having to enter his defence.

Azilah’s SD was filed as a supporting document for his application to the Federal Court for a review of his and Siru’s conviction and death sentence, and a full retrial.

Case management is to be held today.

Azilah’s revelation that the order to kill Altantuya had come directly from Najib, however, contradicts claims by the other man convicted of her murder – Sirul.

The former commando roped in for the covert mission to eliminate the Mongolian fled Malaysia for Australia soon after the Court of Appeal overturned the murder convictions.

He has been detained at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney, from where he has issued press statements through a lawyer, including through videos.

In one video, Sirul swore that Najib was not involved in Altantuya’s death and alluded to acts of sabotage.

In another video, he also dismissed Altantuya’s claim she was pregnant when she was killed.

Sirul applied for asylum from Australia but was rejected earlier this year.

He is liable for deportation back to Malaysia, but Australia’s attorney-general said this would not take place unless the death penalty here is repealed. – December 17, 2019.